Sean Starowitz’s first Talk Shop night was a little quiet

The storefront space at 3936 Main has remained largely unchanged since Sean Starowitz took it over last fall. The windows and glass doors have been cleaned, the floor swept, a podium brought in. But it still signals itself a work in progress: A ladder rests against one wall, and tools litter a few worktables. The beautifying measures are limited to a string of Christmas lights on the ceiling and large gold-cellophane-covered letters spelling out a caps-locked phrase: “Let’s get talking!”

When Starowitz introduced the Talk Shop concept, via an Indiegogo campaign last summer, he said the goal was to offer open-ended community programming. More than an art gallery, the Talk Shop would be a place for public meetings and lectures by visiting artists or social figures. And it would be temporary, lasting just one year.

Starowitz, one of the 2014 Charlotte Street Award Fellows, has generally entwined social service and his art practice. Besides Talk Shop, his projects include the micro-fundraiser Bread KC, which he has engineered since 2010, and Lots of Love, which aims to find uses for vacant lots in Kansas City’s Ivanhoe neighborhood. But it’s this storefront, on his city’s Main Street, where his vision perhaps best crystallizes. The idea isn’t that visitors drop by and get an earful. They’re supposed to answer, to talk back. The more people, the better.

But on this last Wednesday night in January, only a handful of people have come for the latest Talk Shop program. Its title alone might have discouraged some prospective comers: “The Funeral Parlor.”

“‘The Funeral Parlor’ is this concept of the social critique of a bad idea,” Starowitz says as he introduces the speaker, Eric Bunch. “Over the next couple weeks, and probably for the run of this space, I think we’re going to continue ‘The Funeral Parlor’ as a way to gather people and talk about ideas and social issues and how we move through them and beyond them.”

Bunch has come to deliver a presentation on “car culture” — more specifically, he explains, “How car culture has screwed us up since the middle of the 20th century.” His audience is six people — eight if you count Starowitz and me.

Bunch, director of education and policy for BikeWalkKC, speaks authoritatively and succinctly on his topic. In less than 20 minutes, he’s done with the part he had prepared. He takes a seat in the middle of the small group, and a discussion slowly unfolds. Bunch’s argument for the re-prioritizing of metro transportation — placing the pedestrian, rather than the vehicle, at the top of the totem pole — strikes a chord with the gathered few. The conversation lasts nearly an hour.

Despite the low turnout, Starowitz regards the Talk Shop’s first official event as a success.

“Of course, I would like more people there, but not that much more,” Starowitz tells me later that evening. “You don’t want 50 people in there, you know what I mean? You want a dozen or 20, and we’re getting there. It’s about impact, not about audience attendance. And it takes time. All these projects take time.”

On the other hand, Starowitz adds, the most recent Bread KC event, held at the Talk Shop space earlier this month, managed to lure more than 130 people into the small space. So there’s awareness of its existence. The trick is to figure out how to attract more people to wonkier, less celebratory events — events with somewhat loose identities, with names like “The Funeral Parlor.”

Starowitz has reason to expect growth. Later this month, Johnson County librarian John Helling introduces a book series called “Books and Booze,” in which participants sip on libations provided by local bartenders as they discuss literature. February 22, Laura Frank of Inner Space Yoga delivers a seminar on the ritual of meditation and self-care (a program called “Little Meditation”).

“It’ll be interesting to see how the project develops, how it evolves and responds to people,” Starowitz says. “I think we’re starting with very accessible ideas, and I think we’ll get to a place eventually where we’re chewing on some complex stuff. Us tackling some real, prevalent issues and concerns within the city — that’s what I would like to see.”